Sprouting Up: WORLD FOOD SUMMIT - FIVE YEARS LATER
GRAIN
Seedling September 2001
www.grain.org/publications/seed-01-9-4-en.cfm
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) is hosting a "World Food Summit: five years later" from November 5-9, 2001). Of more interest to NGOs is the accompanying "2001 Rome NGO Forum On Food Sovereignty" to be held from November 3-9, 2001. Both meetings were originally planned to be held in Rome, but the Italian government got cold feet after the shame it incurred following police brutality at the G-8 meeting in Genoa in July. The Food Summit will now be held elsewhere (the exact venue not known as Seedling goes to print).
Five years ago the heads of States at the World Food Summit set themselves the ambitious task of halving the number of hungry people in the world within 20 years. Their agenda for cure and change consisted of seven lofty commitments, some weak promises and a list of 182 actions to meet that goal and bring about long-term change. Five years later, with more not less people hungry than in 1996, the official plea is for more political will and more resources. But the problem is the proposed cure itself. This is a recipe based on market liberalisation, private investment, genetic engineering and intensive animal production. The result: an increasingly industrialised agricultural system, marginalised farmers and millions more livelihoods under threat.
NGOs, farmers' organisations and civil society have been pushing for a change
in perception of food as a trade commodity to a basic need for human life to
which all people have a right. Current patterns of trade liberalisation, erosion
of the global commons and investment in inappropriate technologies create food
insecurity. They have a destructive effect on food sovereignty and on the majority
of those who face hunger: the rural poor. These are key elements to consider
in any serious attempt to achieve the World Food Summit goal. The NGO Forum
will consider five strategies that are key to attaining food security at global
and local levels:
· Right to Food - in relationship to international arrangements (e.g.trade),
other relevant policies and domestic social policies.
· Food Sovereignty - the right of the peoples of each country to determine
their own food policy.
· Agricultural Production Models - agro-ecological, organic and other
sustainable alternatives to the current industrial model including their impact
on food safety.
· Access to Resources - land, forests, water, credit and genetic resources;
land reform and security of tenure.
· Democracy and civil society involvement - community empowerment and
the national institutional arrangements to foster its capacity and legitimacy
are essential. At the same time, it is crucial that governments acknowledge
their full responsibility and take effective action towards obtaining food security
for all. The existence of international mechanisms should aim to support economic,
social and political processes of democratisation at the country level, rather
than encouraging their marginalisation.
A major cross cutting issue will be how to protect the livelihoods of the rural
poor and indigenous peoples in the context of globalisation, with attention
to issues of discrimination including gender, caste and class, and ethnicity.
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The World Food Summit - five years later could provide an excellent opportunity
to send clear messages to the fourth Ministerial meeting of the upcomingWorld
Trade Organisation (WTO), the sixth Conference of the Parties to the Convention
on Biological Diversity in The Hague and the World Summit on Sustainable Development
in Johannesburg. NGOs can help build the bridge between these events so that
food sovereignty can be assured and hunger abolished.
In parallel with the Food Summit, the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources (IU), will be finally debated by the FAO Conference. The IU is a treaty that will not only ensure the free flow of genetic resources but will also safeguard food security, Farmers' Rights and international agricultural research. However, three key outstanding issues concerning Intellectual Property Rights, the relationship with the W TO and which crops and forages will be included in the treaty will have to be resolved. These issues will reverberate around the Food Summit The challenge for governments is simply whether the world's agricultural biodiversity is to be nurtured to provide profit for a few or food for all. The IU, while not perfect, could provide the start of an answer. The Food Summit, although potentially distracted by development targets, biotechnology and food aid, could be the medium to convey this good news.
Fidel Castro castigated world leaders at the World Food Summit in 1996 about mis-placed priorities, evidenced by the massive multi-billion dollar expenditure on armaments, and said: "The bells that are presently tolling for those starving to death every day will tomorrow be tolling for all humankind if it did not want, did not know how, or could not be sufficiently wise, to save itself." Have we become wiser in the last five years?
The NGO Forum On Food Sovereignty is being organised by the "Italian Committee", which comprises NGOs from different sectors of Civil Society working with a Core Planning Committee for the Food Summit. The Forum will comprise 80% participants from the South and 20% from the North with an equitable mix of gender, a significant representation from indigenous groups, farmers' organisations as well as NGOs. The forum will challenge governments to rethink their priorities and responsibilities for food security of their constituents and of their neighbours.
In the week preceding the WTO's Ministerial Meeting (November 9-11), it will be all the more important to emphasise the impacts on poverty and food insecurity of agreements made by the WTO, especially the Agreement on Agriculture and the TRIPs Agreement. (The venue of the WTO meeting is also unknown - it was to be in Doha, Qatar, but now will more likely be held in Geneva, Switzerland). For this reason, the Forum organisers' banner is "Let the hunger-debate be the human bridge between Rome and Qatar!"
The Italian Committee has established a Secretariat to whom applications for attendance at the Forum should be sent. Email: [email protected]
Source: Patrick Mulvany, Food Security Policy Adviser, ITDG, Schumacher Centre,Bourton, Rugby, CV23 9QZ, UK. Tel: (44-1788) 661169, E-mail: [email protected]. Extensive documentation on the WFS/fyl, the WTO and the IU is available at the UK Agricultural Biodiversity Coalition's website: www.ukabc.org or at www.grain.org
Reference for this article: GRAIN, 2001, World Food Summit - Five Years Later, Seedling, Sprouting Up, Volume 18, Issue 3, June 2001, GRAIN Publications
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